


Second Chance

by Moit



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drama, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 19:45:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3949354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moit/pseuds/Moit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scott and Stiles have an opportunity to right their wrongs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Chance

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for [The Full Moon Ficlet](http://fullmoon-ficlet.livejournal.com/) comm on LJ, prompt #120: flux. If you have not seen S4 in its entirety, please do not read any further. 
> 
> This has not been beta read because Naemi hasn't seen S4 *whimpers*, so any and all mistakes are mine. If I've made an egregious error in the canon, please let me know kindly. 
> 
>  
> 
> **Additional spoiler-y warning at the end of the fic**
> 
>  
> 
> I'm on Tumblr @moitmiller slowly getting my mojo back. ^_^

The last thing Derek said to Stiles before he died was "save him," as he pressed a carved wooden triskelion into Stiles' palm. 

"Derek?" Stiles said, his voice betraying the desperation he felt that this wasn't truly the end. 

But it was. 

The world around him was chaos, and Stiles still had one thing left to do: save Scott. 

When the smoke cleared and the dust settled, Peter was in Eichen House, and the Argents had fled. Stiles and his friends couldn't bring Derek's body back to Beacon Hills for obvious reasons, but Braedon promised to handle it.

Stiles was sorry he didn't get to say one last goodbye. For as much as he and Derek had fought, Stiles had to admit they'd saved each other's asses more than once. He loved the guy. 

Cora came back from South America to collect Derek's things, and it all just felt so . . . final. The only thing Stiles had left of Derek was the wooden triskelion that Cora insisted he keep. 

"Derek gave it to you--he obviously wanted you to have it." 

"I just don't know what to _do_ with it. He looked so . . . earnest. I can't describe it. I've never seen that look on his face before." 

"If anyone can figure it out, Stiles, I'm sure it's you. My brother knew that, and that's why he wanted you to have this." 

Cora gave Scott and Stiles one last hug and left them alone in Derek's big, empty loft. 

"So what happens now?" Stiles asked, fixing his gaze on the door they would walk out of and shut Derek Hale behind them forever. 

Scott let out a deep sigh. "Now we try to get back to normal--for us, at least. We go back to high school, study for the SATs, and try to move on. There's nothing else we really can do." 

Stiles traced the shape of the triskelion in his hand. "Did I tell you the last thing Derek said to me?" He didn't wait for Scott's reply. "He told me to save you, and then he gave this thing to me." He turned the wooden disc over in his hands. 

"You know," Scott said, really studying it for the first time, "it looks like the lid to the wooden box Derek kept Talia's claws in." 

"Right. Obviously." Stiles scratched his head. He hadn't thought of that. 

"Can I see it?" 

Stiles handed it over and watched as Scott turned the lid over in his hands as Stiles himself had done, trying to figure out what it was for--trying to figure out what it _meant_. 

"I don't know." Scott held it out, and Stiles slid it back into his pocket. "I guess we'll have to keep looking for clues." 

 

Research, Stiles could handle. He poured over the bestiary until he couldn't keep his eyes open. He Googled, scoured old newspapers, and harassed Deaton for anything he might know. 

The lack of answers began to grate on his nerves. 

Two weeks after their return from Mexico, Stiles dragged Scott back to the nemeton. 

"There's got to be something here," he said. "If this thing still has some power, it should provide us with some answers. What it needs, however, is a sacrifice. And this lid to Derek's box," Stiles pulled it out of his pocket, "was carved from the nemeton, so maybe if we give it back, it will provide us something in return."

Scott watched patiently as Stiles set the lid down on top of the tree stump.

"Okay, nemeton," he said, shaking his hands with a dramatic flourish, "give us some answers!" 

Nothing happened. 

Beside him, Scott cleared his throat. "Maybe we have to perform a ritual or something." 

"Do you know of any rituals, Scott? Because I'm doing my best here." 

"We could try giving it some blood?" 

"I faint at the sight of blood, remember? And, no. I'm not letting you bleed me out, not even to figure out why Derek gave me this stupid symbol. For all we know, there's nothing special about it, and he was acting on reflex. I saved you, but we couldn't save him. The end. Story's over." He leaned down to pick the triskelion up, but Scott grabbed his arm. 

"Stiles, look!" 

Near the base of the tree was a pulsing blue circle inlaid with a symbol very similar to that of a triskelion. 

Realization hit Stiles like runaway freight train. "Scott!" he shouted. "That's not a triskelion--it's a flux capacitor!" 

"A what?" 

"A time travel device!" Stiles screamed. He snatched the wooden disk off the tree trunk and slammed it down onto the symbol. Almost instantly, the triskelion began to glow blue as well. 

"Stiles, what's going on? What are you talking about?" 

"You haven't seen _Back to the Future_ , have you?" Stiles shook his head. "Nevermind. Look: the spirals in this triskelion stand for past, present, and future. It's just like the symbol in Doc's time machine, which is why it's glowing." 

"Doc . . . Deaton?" 

"Stay with me, Scotty. Derek told me to save you, and he gave me this, which probably means he wants us to go back in time and fix everything." 

"Wait," Scott said. "If Derek knew the nemeton was a time machine all along, why didn't he just use it himself?"

"I don't know, Scott. I was sort of too busy watching him _die_ to ask about all the instructions. But, he _knew_ we'd come back to the nemeton, and he knew we'd figure it out!" 

Scott's groan of frustration sounded more like a growl, and Stiles' eyes lit up. "That's it."

"What?" 

Stiles put Scott's hand back on the triskelion. "You need to shift. The power from an Alpha werewolf's shift has got to have enough mojo to power this thing. That's the sacrifice you have to make. That's why Derek couldn't do it himself."

Scott looked doubtful, but he began to shift nonetheless. The triskelion's glow intensified. 

"That's it! You're doing it!" Stiles shouted. 

The light beneath Scott's hand became so bright that Stiles had to shut his eyes against it. There was a flash behind his eyelids, and then it all went dark. 

"Scotty?" Stiles asked tentatively. 

"Yeah, I'm here," Scott said, but his voice sounded weird . . . wooden. 

Stiles cracked his eyes open, and it took a moment for them to adjust. Through the darkness he now found himself in, Stiles could see that Scott looked odd . . . younger." 

"Dude, your face!" 

"My face?" Scott said. "Your face. Your hair!" 

"What's wrong with my hair?" Both of Stiles' hands flew to his head, and he let out a scream. "The nemeton gave me a buzz cut!" 

"Stiles," Scott said, "I think the nemeton sent us back in time."

"Wow. I mean, I'm not exactly in love with the idea of repeating 10th grade, either, but . . . "

"Stiles," Scott said, and he looked more serious than Stiles had ever seen him. "We need to find Derek and tell him to kill Peter so we can all be free to live our lives." 

"Yeah?" Stiles said. "Well, what about Kate? Gerard?" 

"They're not our problem anymore. Think about Boyd and Erica and Heather and all the other people who died. Jackson is never going to become a killer kanima, and he and Lydia don't have to break up." 

"Oh, yeah, this is great," Stiles said sarcastically. "Everyone wins but me."

"Well, Heather did want you to take her virginity at her birthday party." 

"Oh, god, I'm a virgin again," Stiles moaned. "And the girl I lost it to is currently living as a feral coyote in the woods." He looked around suddenly, like said coyote could be standing behind him. 

"Well, we saved Derek, too. Stiles, we have a chance to right things. Don't you think we should take it?" 

Stiles did, but he couldn't help but worry about all the deadly things that could arrive in Beacon Hills. But he also supposed that was the price he paid for turning back time and changing the future: nothing was ever certain. "I think we should--"

The sound of barking dogs cut him off. 

"Run!" 

Stiles grabbed Scott's wrist and held on for dear life. He wasn't going to lose him this time--not for anything. They crested the hill and stopped short when they came face-to-face with--

"Stay right there!" 

Stiles froze. Scott reached for the inhaler in his pocket and took a puff as he panted for breath. 

"Hold on, hold on," Stiles' dad said, stepping into the light, "one of these delinquents belongs to me. The other is his partner in crime." He fixed Stiles with a hard look. "Do you listen in on all my phone calls?" 

"No . . . " Stiles said, feeling an eerie sense of déja vu wash over him. "Not the boring ones." 

"All right," the deputy said, taking each boy by the arm. "I'm taking you back to the Jeep, and we're going to discuss a little thing called _invasion of privacy_." 

For once in his life, Stiles was thankful to be getting caught by his father. 

 

The following morning, they had to face their first day of 10th grade all over again. Stiles began to seriously regret his decision until he saw Allison Argent walk into their classroom, all dimples and dark hair and _life_. He had to hold onto Scott's arm to keep him from falling out of his chair in his haste to pick up her pencil. 

"Scott," Stiles hissed, grabbing his arm, "you can't. You can't get mixed up in all that again, not after everything I did to get you _out_." 

"Go find Derek," Scott replied. He pulled away from Stiles' grip and handed Allison her pencil. 

"Thanks," she replied, giving him that million-watt smile. 

Even Stiles' heart ached. He still blamed himself for her death. 

 

Derek Hale was lurking in the burnt-out shell of the old Hale House, as he had been when this all happened the first time. He appeared in the doorway young and bare-faced, as he had been back then, when the Jeep rumbled to a stop in the dirt path that served as a driveway. For a moment, their eyes met, and Stiles' breath caught. He understood what Scott had been feeling when he saw Allison in English class. Stiles' last memory of Derek was watching the werewolf take his final breaths of life in this world. 

Derek jumped off the porch and met Stiles before he had taken two steps out of the Jeep. 

"This is private property," he said. His scowl was etched firmly onto his face, and Stiles wanted to laugh it off. "You need to leave." 

"Derek, wait. Just hear me out. Please." 

His leather jacked creaked in protest as he crossed his arms over his chest. "How do you know my name?"

"It's sort of a long story," Stiles said. "Can you just promise not to rip my throat out before I finish talking?" 

Derek raised an eyebrow, which Stiles had learned long ago meant "start talking." 

"Okay, so, I know this might sound totally weird, but my best friend Scott and I traveled back in time from about two years from now to save you and most of our friends. Your Uncle Peter is the one who killed Laura so he could become Alpha. When this happened two years ago--in my world, or whatever you want to call it--he bit Scott, and Scott became a werewolf, too. We sort of got you arrested for Laura's murder, but then we figured out it was Peter." Stiles shook his head. "Sorry, I'm getting to the point. After you killed Peter, we had to fight an Alpha pack. You created your own pack, but the alphas killed one of them, made you kill another, and the third left town. Oh, and you died while we were trying to kill Kate Argent, who we thought was dead, but she turned into a wereleopard. The last thing you said to me was 'save him,' before giving me this." Stiles pulled the wooden triskelion out of his pocket and held it out to Derek. "There was also some stuff with a darach and I was posessed by a nogitsune, but that's not really important. What you need to do is kill Peter and Kate before they team up and actually kill you." Stiles finished talking and took a much-needed breath. 

Derek blinked at him. He took the triskelion and inspected it. "Where did you get this?" 

"I told you--you gave it to me. You got it from the underground tunnel that leads to your family's vault--great hiding place, by the way. It used to hold your mom's claws, but I don't know what happened to the box or the claws. All I have is the lid. That's what powered the nemeton to get us back here." 

"Okay," Derek said slowly, "Assuming that I believe you, how do I know that everything you're telling me is true? Why should I trust you? What's to stop you from convincing me to be on your side just to kill me? How do I know this isn't some elaborate ruse concocted by one of my enemies?"

Stiles opened his mouth and shut it with a click. Derek had a point. "Well, I can tell you that your sister is still alive. And your cousin, but she's sort of living as a werecoyote in the woods right now, so she's probably not your best ally." 

"Laura?" Derek said. "No, she isn't. I buried her." 

"Cora." Stiles couldn't help the smile that spread across his face. He hadn't thought about getting to her before the alpha pack, so that would be a nice change. If he and Derek could get to her early enough, of course. 

Derek's eyes narrowed. "Cora died in the fire that killed my family." 

"Actually, she didn't. She escaped and she's been hiding ever since." 

"Why didn't she tell us? Why did she hide?" 

"You'll have to ask her that." 

Thankfully, Derek seemed satisfied with that answer. He turned his attention once more to the triskelion in his hands. "So I gave this to you." 

"Yep." 

"Is there anything else I should know?" 

_Boy, is there ever,_ Stiles thought. "Uhh . . . well, Scott's not a werewolf, anymore, because we managed to avoid Peter this time around. Oh, and Peter's nurse is the one helping him get out. I don't know if she knows he's killing people, but she's his accomplice. And the Argents--Chris and Victoria and Allison--just moved back to town. If everything is playing out like it did before, Kate will be here in a few weeks, and she's going to try to kill you, so you should probably just do her in before that happens. And then maybe skip town because that will create some serious problems between you and that family. And they'll try to kill you." 

"I don't think anyone even knows I'm back in town, yet," Derek said thoughtfully. "You said you and your friend accused me of murder . . . last time?" 

"Uhh, yeah," Stiles said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. "My dad is sort of the sheriff. Well, he will be. Right now, he's just a deputy." 

"Okay, so if you went through all this trouble to . . . travel back in time and warn me about Kate and Peter, do you think you could keep my presence in Beacon Hills a secret long enough for me to fix things and get back out of here?" 

Stiles nodded. His chest had constricted at the thought of Derek leaving him behind, but it really was the safest option. 

"Well, thanks for all this," Derek said, holding up the triskelion for a moment. "What did you say your name was?"

"Stiles," he said around the lump in his throat, "it's Stiles." 

 

Scott didn't ask if he had talked to Derek, so Stiles didn't volunteer the information. He felt way too heartbroken to talk about it. Maybe he could try to go find Malia. Or not. 

Stiles trudged into English behind Scott and Allison, who were holding hands. Stiles wanted to hate them for being so perfect and cute, but after the two years he just lived through, he couldn't. 

He slumped in his seat and dropped his book onto the desk with a _thunk_. Maybe now he should actually start thinking about getting into a good college. It was really all he had going for him, after all. 

Their teacher walked into the room and shut the door. Stiles didn't look up until he heard her begin to speak, and his heart practically stopped in his chest. 

"Hi, everyone. I'm Ms. Blake. I'll be taking over your class for the rest of the semester."

**Author's Note:**

> **Spoiler-y warning: This diverges from the S4 finale insofar as Derek actually dies, but due to the events in the fic, he doesn't, actually, which is why I haven't warned for "major character death."**


End file.
